Drought-proofing in Southern California by seawater desalting is economic today
✍ Scribed by William E. Katz
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1992
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 551 KB
- Volume
- 86
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0011-9164
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Just three months ago yesterday, in one historic breakthrough week for the desalting industry, starting on Tuesday, May 28 and ending on Tuesday, June 4, the City Council and the voters of Santa Barbara, California, took three separate actions which have forever changed both the perception and the reality of seawater desalting in Southern California.
What were the three actions?
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The City Council contracted to take or pay for 7500 acre-feet per year (AFY) of desalted seawater for a temporary, drought emergency, five-year period, from a $30,000,000 reverse osmosis seawater desalting plant-built, owned and operated by a private firm (Ionics, Incorporated). The capital cost of $30,000,000 divided by the fresh water "safe yield" of 7500 AFY produces a unit capital cost of $4000 per AFY of capacity. This $4000 per AFY is a key number in the arithmetic of drought-proofing.
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An unprecedented 82% of the voters in a special election favored a 5000 AFY seawater desalter as part of the long-term Santa Barbara water plan.